The kitchen is a place of community and contentment—so it’s no surprise that throughout history, it’s also been a haven for tomfoolery. While much of today’s kitchen slang has arisen as a response to the stressful working conditions back of house and the potential problems guests cause in the front, some remnants of this comical side of the culinary [...]
Social media intro: Have you ever watched a man sweep a woman off her feet, taking her completely by surprise as he proclaims that he “can’t help himself”? Or perhaps you’ve heard a girl tell her boyfriend that her life would be meaningless without him by her side. While these utterances can be signs of affection and love, they [...]
If one thing is certain about language, it’s that it changes. As people develop new ways of expressing themselves, explaining phenomena, and crafting ideas, language must be malleable enough to adapt to these needs. Within this microcosm of change sits slang—often informal linguistic niches that are primarily constrained to specific groups or contexts. Believe it or not, the kitchen [...]
What does laughter sound like? If your answer is that it goes, “Hahaha,” then you’re very likely an English speaker (oh the horror). But why would that be the case? Doesn’t laughter sound the same across the world? Sure, in a certain way it does. Human beings always know when another person is laughing, regardless of their cultural or [...]
Writing systems, or scripts, are tools that humans developed to document and transmit ideas that came to us using language. As it turns out, the scripts that we’ve developed are quite versatile and can be used to transcribe a variety of languages. Consider, conveniently, the example of this article that you’re reading. It’s written in the Latin script, which [...]
When people think of cults, it is often common to wonder how the participants ended up buying into the message. From the outside, the flaws of the cult may seem obvious or downright unbelievable. However, there is an often overlooked reason these groups are so compelling: language. Cult leaders who know how to leverage the spoken and written word [...]
Languages come in all shapes and sizes around the world—but if there’s one thing that languages share, it’s swearing. While the curse words (and phrases) of choice will vary based on geographic location, dialect, and more, world languages have a lot more in common than you might think when it comes to swearing. Swears originate with the universal experience [...]
For centuries, human beings have looked around at the creatures with whom we share this marvelous Earth and wondered if they can communicate like we do. Communication, after all, is one of the linchpins of the human project. None of what we’ve achieved as a species would be possible without it. We’ve thus deployed significant resources to study how [...]
The influence of the Bible and Christianity in modern culture is difficult to overstate, even for non-religious people. From the beloved Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris to Cristo Redentor towering over Rio de Janeiro, the Western world is steeped in Christian imagery. It can be argued that none of these cultural monuments would have survived into the 21st century if [...]
In our previous article, The Origin and Uses of Runes: The History That Drives Modern Runic, we covered where Futhark runes came from, how they were used, and what constitutes a rune. While the use of Futhark is no longer a daily occurrence, these symbols are still pervasive in cultures around the globe—for both favorable and reprehensible reasons. The [...]
